Var Gallery owner Josh Hintz wants a growing, glowing neon scene in Milwaukee once again.
From the 1920s to the ’60s, local neon makers thrived off the beer signage that decorated bars and breweries, but as the flashy art form lost popularity, the community mostly disappeared.
Inspired by that history and emerging national artists, Hintz wanted to build a neon studio space in his Walker’s Point gallery. He found out about a studio’s worth of neon equipment on sale “for a quarter of the price” in New Orleans, he says, and made the 14-hour drive to pick it up.
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After repairs, he launched an introduction to neon class in July 2024. The three-day workshop teaches students to design a neon sign or sculpture they can take home. Stephanie Sara Lifshutz, an artist from Brooklyn represented by Var Gallery, guides students through the process of designing, bending, wiring and installing.
“We’re training a new generation of neon makers in Milwaukee,” Hintz says.
The workshops are already making their mark: Joy Ice Cream Social owner Liz Joy created a cherry neon sign that’s now inside her Tosa shop.
Hintz says he’d like to see more local artists pick up neon and keep the art form alive as true neon fizzles out in modern times. “There’s this obsession with the LED light, imitation things that are kind of taking its place – selling itself as this new form of neon, but it’s not at all,” he says. “It’s palpable how cheap they are. It bums me out coming from a space of talented makers, and people not appreciating craft anymore.”
The classes are intimate and guided “with grace” by Lifshutz, Hintz says. “It’s impossible for someone to feel they aren’t being supported. She does not let you fall on your face.”
Classes return this month, starting at $300 for a single-day course on Sept. 14. Hintz says they’ve worked to keep costs down so that neon isn’t a “privileged thing to learn. I want it to be accessible for everyone.”
